📊 The Age People Leave Their Jobs, and the Age They Start a Business
| Age Group |
Job Exit Reality |
Self-Employment Entry |
| Under 30s |
Rarely leave; long-term employment expected |
Approx. 15% |
| 40s |
Anxiety begins; restructuring and promotion stagnation |
Approx. 22% |
| 50s |
Exits accelerate; early retirement and buyouts common |
Approx. 27% |
| 60 and over |
Only a few remain (executives or exceptional cases) |
Approx. 36% |
The official retirement age is 60.
But most employees realize long before that
they won’t actually make it that far.
“Even if the paycheck is small,
you should have something you can do on your own.”
My mother-in-law, who ran her own hair salon,
used to say this to my wife from time to time.
Every time I heard it,
I found myself thinking the same thing.
I was confident working hard
within an organization or a system,
but investing my own money
to run a business of my own felt beyond me.
“Something I could do on my own”
simply wasn’t an option in my life.
A Life of Working Hard Within the System
“Work until retirement,
and think about life after that later.”
That was what I believed.
But when I was passed over for promotion,
a thought crossed my mind for the first time.
“Ah… maybe it won’t work out that way.”
That was when I began to see things more clearly.
- Hard work does not always lead to results
- Even results can be credited to a superior who set the direction
- If your department underperforms, promotions stall regardless of effort
- Not everyone in a pyramid structure moves up
- At some point, relationships and luck matter as much as ability
- When companies struggle, restructuring can happen at any time
- Even those who stay may face years with no promotions at all
Between Worry and Avoidance
Around my forties,
I noticed myself becoming increasingly sensitive.
“Just work until retirement,
and worry about the rest later.”
But suddenly,
that belief began to shake.
“Work until retirement?”
Little by little,
I realized how difficult that actually was.
Looking around my current company,
How many people are in their 50s?
What positions do they hold?
Who is still around at 55?
Are there really people who stay until 60?
And if they do,
Is it because they’re exceptional?
Because they’re good at politics?
Because they were lucky?
Or simply because they endured?
One thing became clear.
To be among that small group,
skill and effort alone are not enough.
Relationships.
Luck.
They have to align as well.
In other words,
it is not something you can decide for yourself.
The Biggest Problem
The biggest problem is that
we worry about the future,
but when daily work gets busy,
we forget those worries.
We worry briefly,
postpone again,
and then get busy once more.
That’s how we avoid the reality ahead.
An Option That Never Existed
I believed business was not for me
and set my goal as retiring from my job.
But I eventually learned
that retirement itself is not guaranteed for everyone.
The average retirement age for Korean men is 49.3.
That number is not arbitrary.
After turning 45,
amid constant inner conflict,
my mother-in-law’s words came back to me.
“Even if the paycheck is small,
you should have something you can do on your own.”
In your forties,
starting a business is often not a prepared choice,
but something you are pushed into.
If I had taken seriously the idea that
“your own business is not optional”
back when I was a junior or mid-level employee,
my choices might feel less anxious today.
And then,
a thought occurs.
Perhaps the problem was never choosing too late,
but believing for too long that we had no choice at all.
📊 Job vs. Self-Employment: Structural Differences
| Category |
Employment |
Self-Employment |
| Income |
Relatively stable |
Unstable |
| Age Impact |
Significantly disadvantaged after 40s |
Relatively flexible |
| Failure Cost |
Limited personal loss |
Fully borne by the individual |
